Is this the way to Dharamsala?

Hand picking up poor defenseless sheep.

After the storm the previous night we continued our journey to Dharamsala. Again the purpose of going to Dharamsala was to check out the camp and the area for programs to be run there. This was a fairly uneventful drive apart from seeing some of the destruction that was caused by the storm the previous night. There was trees down causing blockages to the roads. Although what kind of surprised me was that it was the local community helping to clear the roads up - rather than the emergency services or local governments. We saw many ladies and children gathering wood presumably to make fires with at a later time. 

The drive was pretty uneventful although driving up the mountain to the camp was pretty cool. There was some pretty high mountains and it felt like we were going into the middle of nowhere. 

More Camel  Drive By Photography

Beautiful Mountains

Stunning Views

 The camp was completely contrasting to Saatal. Located on the side of the mountain it is a lot steeper and rockier and not as much open ground to accommodate people. Although it does has a high ropes course which looks pretty interesting and activities include Burma Bridge, Flying fox, tree climb, cargo net and an artificial climbing wall. They are all located quite closely together so the size of group that is taken there at once would definitely need to be considered. 

Got a head for heights?

The facilities are very basic, toilet tents, make shift sinks, shower tents all outside -  Although, getting back to basics isn't too much of an issue. It is however quite ingenious how they are able to improve and make the best out of the materials and location that they have to work with. 

The scenery was incredible though, a few of us went for a wander and watched the sun go down and the stars and the mo come out! It was fun to have a mini adventure pretty much without touches or anything useful! We were 'well prepared' for a bunch of outdoor people. Although with saying that everything we needed was in out tent somewhere! 

Beautiful Sunset In the Mountains

After an amazing meal it was time to sleep in preparation for our first proper experience of trekking the Himalaya's the next few days to come. 

Wish Upon A Star...,

Rivers, mountains, driving and storms!

So the six hour journey to Dharamsala started with a drive back along the mountain road we drove down the night before. This time we could see the river in the daylight! And wow! I was excited to get on it! That would have to wait though.

Drive by photography - Camel.

On the way we stopped at a sheikh mosque which was beautiful - located next to a river the scale, design, materials and detail were beautiful. It was huge and there were lots of visitors along with us. One thing that's opened my eyes is the amount of different religions that coexist along side each other and the variety of different beliefs there are. I'm keeping my mind open to it all as I think that's the right thing to do instead of being a skeptic.

Food with the crew - Ammu, Dhruv, Myself, Ben & Pavane.

Outside - Ben, Ammu, Myself & Dhruv in the yellow.

After 7 hours - probably the closest journey so far to the 6 hours we predicted we arrived at Pavane's uncles house. Which was an impressive building. It was pretty good timing as pretty much as soon as we got out the car and into the house the sky had started turning black. We were fortunate enough to witness this amazing storm - strong winds, thunder, lightning and of course rain. It was spectacular - it ripped down branches off the tree's and caused all sorts of damage. The atmosphere felt alive! I really thought it was incredible - the force of Mother Nature and what it can do is a really powerful force at times!

This carried and gave us water - its a pretty cool invention.

Saatal Recce

Walking Grass

The six hour journeys were to continue. Most of the journeys we took ended up longer than was predicted due to one reason or another. The journey to saatal, which means seven lakes was fairly uneventful however there was a slight glitch. Ravindra was the navagator - I guess the guy with the important job - he was using a combined mix of navagational aids. We were not too far away from the camp and it was getting fairly late and it was dark by then. upon looking up at the sky it was full of sparkling stars. It was magical. you could just about make out the sillouettes of the mountains around us. It was fairly cool and lights could be seen in the distance. Apart from the odd car here and there it felt as if we were completely alone. Things were going pretty well.

The boys being boys!

However, the route which the navagator had chosen for us to go lead us around this small community, down a narrow track to a bridge over the river -although it turned out to be a footbridge! so we were unable to cross with the 4x4 we were in! So it was time to turn around. After the boys getting out to make sure we didn't drive down the bank into the river and some great manouveres of the car by pavane we were off again. Driving back up the road we came down. When we were Trying to leave the community we were greeted by some armed police and after a short conversation in hindi we were back on the main road again. who knows what that was about! Not me anyway! As when we first drove through there was noone to be seen.

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A..!

Eventually we reached the YMCA camp we were staying at. We were shown to our tents which were pretty luxurious for tents - fitted out with two double beds, toilets and a shower! After a few drinks of rum it was time for bed. 

One of the Beautiful Lakes...

The real excitement came in the morning. We awoke and were ready to see what this camp had to offer to us in terms of running outward bound programs there. Everything from food, accomadation and facilities to activities we could run had to be figured out and explored in the limited time that we had there. Leaving the tent and seeing the scenery in the daylight was amazing. There was this beautiful lake surrounded by trees and mountains. The scenery in the Himalayas and India is so contrasting and beautiful although you can find exceptional beauty in nature in most places if you open up your heart and your eyes to it no matter where the location is.

The Crew - Ravindra, Dhruv, Ben & Pavane.

After breakfast we went on a short trek to check out the climbing area - a big boulder where you can do a short climb and abseil which we were happy with. We then carried on exploring the area and took a trek to the waterfall. Along the was Suri - mountain man and one of the facilitators was explaining to me about how the lakes were named and trying to teach me some Hindi - it's where I learnt how to count to ten! Attempting the learn the language was fun and more words were slowly added to my vocabulary throughout my entire trip. 

The Monkey Crew.

After lunch we went up to check out the temple at the top of the mountain. It was quite a steep climb and in the heat it felt like it went on forever but we eventually reached the top the views were spectacular. After ringing the bell to enter the temple and after taking our shoes and socks off we had a look around. There was statues, flowers and incense amoung various other things to look at. I'm not entirely sure what height that this temple was at but I believe it's higher than Ben Nevis - which I'm still yet to climb and although I've been living in Scotland not too far away i haven't hm yet got around to it! Maybe spending all my time on the water doesn't help! 

Look at the waterfall! 

There are plenty of oppourtunities for activites at Saatal which is good as it keeps it interesting. Although as it isn't one of our camps anything that we want to use has to be brought with us - so I guess organisation is key. It seems that they would like the planning details really thought about before the program runs. Which I guess is different to how I've always worked before - mostly on residential centres, having activites placed there and having the freedom to use my skills and knowledge to take oppourtunities as and when they arrive. We shall see what happens here as it's still early days and I haven't seen a program actually run. 

At the Temple at the top of the mountain - Higher than Ben Nevis.

Massive Caterpillar.

Temple Hidden in the trees.

Travelling - road trip

Travelling round india theres many sights to see which is an experience in itself. From seeing whole families on one motor bike or 20ft ladders being carried on a different bike to cows just chilling in the middle of the road. Expect the unusual and embrace it. Rules don't seem to apply just honk your horn - the more musical the better and find the gap in the direction you want to go! I haven't yet experienced driving myself around, however it was always an interesting experience as a passenger and none of the journeys I went on were uneventful.

Dhruv - Nice Hat!

At the start of my internship myself and fellow intern and Uni friend Ben, along with the boss and fellow staff were fortunate to spend several days travelling around to recce some places for us to run programs out of. The travels started out from Delhi - where the roads were packed full of drivers and roads in pretty good condition - apart from it being hot and my amusement in seeing the cows everywhere it was pretty uneventful. Although saying that there was some pretty interesting ways of driving and transporting things to be observed. Upon Ben enquiring about how long roughly the journey would take we were informed it would take about 6 hours. At that moment in time that was a fairly satisfactory answer - and conversation followed along with a mix of mostly Hindi music - although not understanding what the music was saying we got rough translations which satisfied our curiosity. 

Making a road - Lots of dust!

Once leaving Delhi we were able to see many different sights that India has to offer, beautiful scenery, mixed in with some fascinating animals, houses made out of what could be classed as rubbish to some westerners, little shops and restaurants. The roads ranged from nice Tarmac roads to potholes that were so big you couldn't avoid them. Well on the journey one of these potholes did damage the rim of the wheel on the car - Unfortunately. However, coincidently and luckily for us there was help not too far away as a few hundred meters down the road there was a man who can fix this. So we pulled over to these guys on the side of the road who - pretty quickly beat the tyre back into the right shape with a hammer and blew it back up and put it back on pretty quickly. They could rival the formula 1 people but without the fancy tools. After negotiating the price - We were on our way again fortunately. As it was dark and quite a crowd of men had gathered around from nearby who had all been drinking- maybe the sight of myself and Ben caused their interest or the whole group of us did who knows I didn't understand a word they were saying! We were back on our travels which was good and making progress to our destination.

That was the start of what we became to refer to as the six hour journeys - inspiration for a book that could be written about just journeying around India as it never seems as straight forward as you want it to be. 

Cows!!!